


tonight was the night

by Ser_Renity



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dragon Symmetra, F/F, Minor Character Death, Some referenced Pharah/mercy and symmetra/mercy, Witch Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, possessed pharah, takes place in the world of junkenstein's revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-26 20:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12565176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ser_Renity/pseuds/Ser_Renity
Summary: She was born from fire.





	tonight was the night

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in time for Halloween and I am pretty happy about that, my guys, pretty happy indeed.
> 
> I took some liberties with the lore and the characters here but I hope what I produced is a cool fic for these cool gals, I hope I did them justice.

* * *

 

 

She was born from fire.

  
It was a fact, not a hypothesis- it was irrefutable.

  
One day the fires of hell were burning especially bright, their insatiable maws snapping away at the rocks that lined the shaft leading out of the underworld. A gigantic pillar of flame erupted from below, reached up to the heavens and was extinguished as quickly as it had come.

  
What it left behind was a dragon’s egg at the edge of hell. Its surface was red and black and _blood_ in color and texture, a molten core from the depth of the earth. It was out there in the wild with all its gruesome beauty, fire burning in its heart.

  
It took years for it to hatch, warmed by the flames from below

  
When it did, hell roared its fury once more, seeing the world shiver and tremble.

  
It quieted down after moments of unbridled anger, its rage coming in waves and spurts as the surface of the egg cracked and crumbled.

  
What remained was a dragon.

  
She didn’t know who or what she was as her consciousness took shape. It was all colors and lines then, spiralling around her until they formed distant memories of a former life, of places she had been and spices she had tasted. Within moments she was aeons old.

  
_Symmetra_ , the ancient voice inside herself said, _Symmetra._

  
And she knew then, without a doubt, that she was more powerful than the world she had been born into.

 

* * *

 

 

She wandered the wilds for a while.

  
Every creature of the forests knew not to mess with her; they knew to be wary of the dragon and its fire.

  
She had found the weapon close to her as she woke up on that very edge of the world and her claws held it close as though it was her newborn child. It was a priced possession- it was what would keep her alive out in the wild and the unknown. Shaped like another, larger claw its one eye ceaselessly followed her movement and she felt its magical power brimming underneath her palm whenever she so much as lifted it.

  
There were the sentinels, too, the small ocular creatures she could send out into the world and whose fire alerted her to intruders quickly. Many a cave was littered with them as she slept- just in case, just a precaution. They never let her down.

  
There was another power sleeping deep within her burning core but she knew not how to use it yet- she only dreamed of it, sometimes, out in the woods with the trees whispering to her to stay away. A spinning, beautiful construct of light and magic.

Something that protected rather than destroyed.

  
She wandered the wilds aimlessly at first, not knowing a soul in these lands or where to find it. Memories returned to her sporadically, far-away places and people who accepted her presence.

  
She had not met anyone else at this time, spent her time alone and with the voice of the ancients guiding her along. They coaxed her to try out her powers, look at that sky to see what the world around her was like. It kept on turning as she walked.

  
Her wings kept her warm.

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re a dragon,” the first human she met said, “Oh my god.”

  
Symmetra rolled her eyes.

  
“Astute,” she replied and dragged her fingers across her horns, over the tail at the back of her head, “I mean you no harm.”

  
The traveling merchant lowered her weapon and looked part relieved, part sceptical. She expected a dragon to kill her instantly. Symmetra had not yet learned to be cruel.

  
The woman was travelling with a horse and a wagon, carrying supplies between villages and doing so as quickly as possible unless a certain obstruction on the streets hindered them.

  
“I’ve never seen someone like you,” the woman said and she had a strong accent, sounded young and flippant as though she was born from a whirlwind rather than human flesh.  
“Likewise,” Symmetra answered and lifted her chin, “Human, do you fear me?”

  
“Should I?”

  
“I was told it would be wise to fear someone like me.”

  
“Told by whom?”

  
“The ancients who speak through me,” she said, “All the dragons who came before me. There can only be one at a time, mortal, we are summoned from the fires of hell itself.”

  
The woman gaped.

  
“That’s really cool. All I can do is ride horses really fast.”

  
Symmetra was not sure what to do with that information and the conversation stalled there; she was not good at this, had never learned how to be around humans or other kinds of people. This jockey was eyeing her like she was the strangest creature she had ever come across- and that was true, possibly, but that did not mean Symmetra had to like it.

  
“D’you want me to take you to the next town, luv?” the woman asked, “You look like you could use some company.”

  
“No.”

  
She declined. They parted ways.

  
It was not the last time she met a human soul.

 

* * *

 

 

Symmetra dreamed of a city often when she was alone and the nights were cold.

  
She lay on the ground in the forest and looked at the stars above the treetops; or she counted stalactites in glowing caves. Either way the floor beneath her was hard and uneven and only due to her scales could she rest easy. Her sentinels hummed around her, their very own lullaby, her weapon rested at her side.

  
The city in her dreams was vast and dirty as all cities were, at their heart. Its smell was that of iron and wood. A thousand people roamed the street she found herself on, a place she could not visit in her waking hours.

  
Symmetra walked through the crowd of busy faces, stepped around strangers as though she had done this all her life. Dragons did not grow up on the street; dragons did not grow up at all. They were crafted and shaped into perfection from the moment they were born and wanted for nothing- nothing but the call of the ancients.

  
In the distance she saw the rooftops and spires of the city loom over her and the bustling streets, smelled the iron in the air where blacksmiths and alchemists built their tools and gadgets.

  
Her claws clicked away on the pavement. Dreams were usually quiet for her, focused on the shape of things rather than its sounds. She knew this to be a vision, though, felt it in her fiery heart that this was important somehow.

  
So she followed the street with the blacksmith and the alchemist opposite of each other; she saw the names of their shops in her dream but could never remember them waking up.

  
The dream ended, though, and she was left wanting.

 

* * *

 

 

The first time she set foot inside a human settlement the people living there hid from her. They barricaded their windows and kept their doors shut as soon as the first screaming person had made it back to their homestead.

  
“A dragon, a dragon,” they had shouted as she stood there, amused, with one of her eyebrows lifted, “She has come to our village!”

  
Symmetra did not burn down their houses or slaughter their children; she was a dragon, of course, but she had no interest in meaningless cruelties.

  
So instead she sat down by the river close to the mill and listened to the water stream by. There were life energies in the air and beneath the surface, the fish and the plants and the smallest of bacteria. It pulsed and lived and breathed as much as she did; and the sun was sky in the sky.

  
Then, a child approached her.

  
It was a young girl with dark skin and a golden headdress, smiling and waving as she came closer through the wet grass.

  
“Welcome!” the girl said.

  
Symmetra did not know what to say; she was surprised and taken off guard.

  
The girl extended her small hand.

  
“I’m Efi!” she said, “And one day I will build the best protector in the whole world!”

  
Symmetra felt a memory stir in the back of her mind at that; it reminded her of the power inside herself that she felt was still locked away. There was no use trying to force it out into the open, it would come with time.

  
“Symmetra,” she said, “I am merely passing through.”

  
“Where are you going?”

  
“North.”

  
“That’s where the swamps are, that’s very dangerous.”

  
Symmetra laughed and surprised herself with it.

  
“I can handle ‘dangerous’,” she told the girl, “I know it well.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next part of the dream came to her on a night where she wasn’t alone.

  
By chance she had come across a travelling group of artists who made their way through the woods at night in a covered wagon. It had beautiful pictures painted on it in as many colours as she had ever seen in the world.

  
The people were hesitant at first, then suspicious. But a harlequin in their midst convinced them that it was alright to let the dragon stay with them for the night. She invited Symmetra to sit around the fire with them as though she had never seen one before.

  
“You look like you could use some company,” she said, “It must be lonely out there on the road with no one around you.”

  
“I don’t mind solitude,” Symmetra lied, “I can deal with whatsoever this world has to offer.”

  
“You’re pretty tough,” the Harlequin girl laughed, “I’ll give you that much. But at the end of the day you could still use a few friendly faces near you.”

  
She offered Symmetra wine and gossip about all the people that sat around the fire; songs, too, and words among words that she had only heard of in the ancient’s memory.

  
It was always warm where Symmetra went- it was a part of her very being, having the heat of the flame licking away at her insides every step of the way. But this night felt warmer, somehow, as though the way her skin fit had changed and the taste of her tongue where it lay flat in her mouth. Things she took for granted.

  
So when she slept and found herself in the dream again she expected it to end just like the others, right there on the street between the blacksmith and the alchemist.

  
Instead, she walked on.

  
As she awoke, she knew where to head.

 

* * *

 

 

Adlersbrunn was the biggest town she had ever been to and she walked its streets in awe and wonder.

  
The people around her did not see it the way she did; but she was used to that, having her own version of reality and living in it as best she could. A dragon’s eyes saw all they had to.

  
However, even here she was stared at and some of the people here hid from her view, too, as though they feared her gaze along could petrify them.

  
She had her chin lifted high as she moved past the blacksmith and the alchemist that she had seen in her dream, following the route she had taken when asleep.

  
Finally, after a good eternity, she reached a house at the edge of town.

  
No one answered as she knocked on its door.

  
“I know you are in there,” she called out and her heart was only as calm as she feared it to be, “Open the door.”

  
The winds howled out here close to the cliff, the black forest stretching out into the distance below. She could see the trees swaying in the breeze from up here.

  
The door opened a crack.

  
Symmetra pushed it open with her metallic arm.

  
It was a quaint little house, one room and one room only. Time had not gone easy on it and so the walls were not fully in tact anymore, crumbling and falling apart. There was a layer of dust on everything around the place; fallen leaves on the ground where they had been blown inside on a windy day.

  
There was also a person there, on the other side of the room.

  
“Who are you and what do you want from me?” they asked from the shadows. It was a warm voice, a good voice. One of the best she had heard so far.

  
The person stepped out of the darkness and Symmetra’s breath stuck in her throat.

  
The woman on the other side of the room, close to the stove and the herbs swinging on a line above it, was tall. She had black hair and dark ashen skin, her eyes were white and empty, no pupils or iris to speak of.

  
She was also wearing a heavy-looking suit of armor, giving her silhouette sharp angles. The plates were purple with the odd lighter streak on them.

  
As she got closer Symmetra could see the mark under her eye, a few black lines forming a symbol she had never seen before.

  
“Stop staring and answer me!” she demanded and came closer, walking with heavy steps upon the wooden planks.

  
She was beautiful; and that was a foreign thought to Symmetra, not one she had ever had before. It was more personal than the nature of being a dragon allowed her to be- she felt her heart falter as she saw this woman approach her with her eyes full of fury and her voice desperate for answers.

 

Symmetra decided to throw her a bone.

  
“A dream led me here,” she said, honest to the burning core, “It has led me to you.”

 

* * *

 

 

In her dream she walked up the hill and into the outskirts of town. She felt like she was floating whenever she wandered these streets. Her feet only just touched the ground.

  
It was a nice day then, the sun still high in the sky as she made her way to the lone house at the cliff.

  
She knocked.

  
She entered, met a woman as beautiful as the radiant sun.

  
“My name is Symmetra,” she told her, “I am a dragon.”

  
“I can see that. What do you want? I don’t think ‘a dream brought me here’ is going to cut it.”

  
“I told you the truth.”

  
They stared at each other for a long while. White eyes, yellow eyes.

  
“You are not human, either,” Symmetra said.

  
“You don’t say.”

  
“It is easy to tell. Your aura is not that of the mortals.”

  
It was shimmering and gleaming to her inner eye- the hue that surrounded the woman and her armor like a magic force field. It was a deep navy blue and extended outwards in rays and beams of light.

  
“Are you a vengeful spirit?” Symmetra asked, “Bound to this place?”

  
She had memories of those creatures, remnants from the times the ancients had encountered them. These ghosts were tied to the places they had died and haunted them for as long as their rage lasted; they feared silver and the sound of church bells.

Some of them gathered together and let the water’s surface quiver in the pitchers and the urns on the mantlepieces shake. Their power was limited and their lifespan short.

  
The woman laughed and took aim. Her weapon was one of magitechnology; resting on her hip until now. Its barrel was pointed straight ahead, gaping and obviously lethal.

  
“I have no love for this place,” she said, spiteful, “But I will not hesitate to kill you if you decide to challenge me in this temporary home of mine, dragon.”

  
Not a spirit, then.

  
Symmetra was unsure of how to deal with a situation like this; people fled from her, usually, they had not tried to go for her throat before. Of course she knew how to defend herself with claws and teeth and the weapon by her side; she was surprised to find herself at the other end of a gun nonetheless. Out there in the wilds there had been only silence, only solitude. It was different, knowing about it and experiencing it in the flesh.

  
She chuckled, then, with her hand gracefully lifted to her chin.

  
“The dragon’s fire consumes all,” she said, “Are you sure you wish to fight me when I have done nothing to warrant aggression? How about your name, first?”

 

* * *

 

 

The ancients were the dragons that came before her. After they had had their turn, lived their life to the fullest, they added their consciousness to the hivemind, completed the puzzle that was laid out before them when they started.

  
What remained was an amalgamation of experiences and memories inside the head of a single one of their kind- they were a universe inside a person and it dragged on, that chain, dragged on for as long as one of them was born in an uproar of the arcane.

  
They sent the dreams, too, mystical and never straight-forward, lining out a path for the next contestant they had sent out into the world. A wanderer, just like they had been; a summoner, as well.

  
Some of them had lived a thousand years and seen a change in humankind, had watched revolutions happen and kingdoms fall. Some others were gone after just an instant out there in the wild, wild world.

  
In the end they all mattered in their time and continued to matter for as long as a dragon walked this earth- born from hellfire and engulfed in the eternal flame.

 

__

* * *

 

 

Her name was Pharah.

  
She said it so casually that it felt like an afterthought; as if it was her beauty that reigned supreme, not what lived within the shell.

  
Symmetra savoured the sound and repeated it several times as though voicing it was the only way to truly cherish it. It meant something, in the grand scheme of things, the voice of the ancients had led her up this hill and into the arms of the soldier.  
“Come with me,” she said and held out her hand, “Accompany me to the town below.”

  
Pharah followed her, if reluctantly, always two steps behind and with her weapon at the ready.

  
She drew the attention of the population towards them with the colour of her armour and the noise of her footsteps; there was no hiding from prying eyes and the two of them were watched as they walked on.

  
“What do you have to prove by doing this?” Pharah asked and when her anger flared so did the color of the markings on her suit, “Are you making fun of me?”

  
She did not look either way at the crossing between the alchemist and the blacksmith.

  
“I would never.”

  
Symmetra’s voice was light and her amusement shone through; she was having fun with this, seeing the soldier agitated and out of her comfort zone. It was not what the ancients wanted her to do- it was not the plan of the universe she followed as it ran its course, it was her own. Something about this woman made her not care that there were plans to be set in motion, it made her want to let the fire inside herself burn until it faded out, passion and folly.

  
They had only just met but she knew fate to be real, followed its red string across the world for a chance to glimpse the truth.

  
“I want to welcome you to my reality,” Symmetra said and led her hesitant companion through the pulsating streets, “For a little while.”

 

* * *

 

 

Dragons were stubborn and possessive, arrogant and selfish in their desires. They hoarded what they loved and protected it so fiercely that legends were woven about them and their greed.

  
Symmetra had not known interest in someone until this point, had not been possessed by the urge to keep someone around and alive, a breathing reminder of life itself. She had not had her heart consumed before, not with infatuation and not with anything deeper than that.

  
She was intrigued.

  
It burned inside her.

 

* * *

 

 

“We don’t even need this,” Pharah said, “What’s the point?”

  
They sat around a bonfire in the night, just outside town and with the high stone walls right behind them. She was right; they did not need the fire.

  
Symmetra could see in the dark, had always been able to. Darkness was an ally to her, no matter how much she chased it away when the fire inside her burned. Sometimes, when the spark made it outside and she let the weapon at her side stir into action, she felt too bright to look at.

  
Pharah was no different, ever-glowing Pharah with her never-improving mood and complaints as numerous as the day was long. It was a contrast to the way her aura felt and her voice sounded- as though someone had draped a cloak of sadness over her, a grey cloud lingering.

  
“Fire is a good companion in lonely times,” Symmetra told her, “For a short while, as long as it burns.”

  
“Why are you lonely? I’m right here.”

  
It was meant to be stating a fact; merely a fact, nothing more than one.

  
Symmetra laughed into her hand nonetheless, picking up on the implications even if they were new to her. An adventure.

  
“Oh my,” she said, “I did not expect you to be so forward. But yes of course, you are here, my dearest.”

  
Pharah frowned and looked away, ever distant. Something had happened to her- something out of this world and from the beyond. It was puzzling.

  
“Why did you decide to join me?” Symmetra asked her.

  
Another frown.

  
“I had nothing better to do.”

  
“That is not very satisfactory.”

  
“Neither was hearing that a dream brought you to me. We all have to live with these disappointments in life, I guess.”

  
They were quiet after that, two oddities getting by.

  
The night passed slowly; but morning came.

 

* * *

 

 

Her next dream was one of terror.

  
She found herself in the skin of another; a human at that. It was the first observation she made as she found herself in an unfamiliar place. She looked down at her hands and they were soft and without scales; the nails short and blunt instead of the claws she was used to, the fire burning beneath her skin.

  
Her heart was empty, too, no voice or souls of the ancients anywhere close where they belonged. She was alone in her skin and it hurt to be the only one, it hurt to be outside of the loop.

  
She coughed and the air tasted of ash.

  
When she looked up she saw the sky as it was, grey and clouded but not from rain and thunder. The heat on her skin was too much, too close, too sharp.

  
She gasped as the flame got too close to her, stumbled backwards and away where her vulnerable skin was safer, colder, normal.

  
As she looked around she saw she was in a church, stained glass and pews on fire. The woodwork above her was crumbling as she stood there doing nothing, taking in her surroundings.

  
There were people in the room with her, two of them.

  
Looking closer she saw one of them was a man, on his knees and begging. Standing above him was a woman in a large hat and a wizard’s robes, a book dangling at her hip. She had a broom in her hands, using it as a makeshift staff.

  
That was all she saw before the fire consumed her; it hurt, hurt so bad she heard her screams tenfold in her own head.

 

* * *

 

 

“You were having a nightmare,” Pharah said as she shook her awake, one armoured hand on her shoulder and the other on the ground.

  
Symmetra gasped for air.

  
She had never had a nightmare before, had heard of them but never experienced one herself. It was different from what she had expected- she could not shake it easily as she wanted, was not immune to its troubles only because she was a creature from beyond the abyss and born from the eternal flame.

  
It did not go away, that sinking feeling and those terrible screams she could not forget.

  
Pharah stood over her with a worried look on her face- and wasn’t that something, seeing the proud and hurt soldier show concern even with her condition as bad as it was. She had a heart, that one, a good and kind one locked away under miles and miles of unwilling flesh.

  
Symmetra reached out and touched the side of her face, let her claws glide gently over the ashen skin. It was soft, so soft, and feeling like marble to her fingers.

  
Pharah seemed taken aback but she did not move, her lips parted and her eyes wide.

  
“You are a delight,” Symmetra told her, “Your heart so easily betrays you.”

  
They locked eyes once more and an understanding passed between them then, something more than just flimsy companionship shared by the fireside.

  
Pharah swallowed thickly. Her adam’s apple bobbed underneath her skin, dipped underneath the edge of her armour.

  
“I-” she began and licked her lips, “I want to-”

  
And they kissed because it was time to do so, because the stars were aligned and the whispering voices of the ancients left them in peace for them to have their moment, their many moments shared.

 

* * *

 

 

Pharah spoke about her past the first time when they were just passing by a river out in the wilds, watching it grow and flutter as they followed its course.

  
“You asked me if I was a spirit,” she said, “And I told you I am not. That wasn’t exactly right.”

  
“Oh?”

  
“I’m one of the possessed.”

  
She said it carefully and didn’t look Symmetra’s way as though she was scared of her reaction; as though she had just admitted to having the most infectious disease, the most terrible curse.

  
Symmetra scoffed.

  
“I do not know what that means.”

  
They were sitting on an old tree branch that was all hollowed out and housing a myriad of creatures; she could feel them below the bark where they crawled and shifted every second of every minute. It was a nice day out; a soft breeze in the air and the sky clear and crystal.

  
Pharah raised her eyebrows.

  
“You really do know little of this world you wander,” she ascertained, “But I suppose I can tell you the entire story. We seem to have the time.”

  
Symmetra did not care for her tone very much; nor the insinuation that she did not have any idea what was out there for her to see. It made her feel younger than she was; she was ancient, of course, nothing else, never anything else… and not a human, ever.

  
“Tell me the story,” she said into the light of day, “I want to hear it.”

  
Her voice demanding, the dragon coming out.

  
Pharah only smiled.

  
Then, she spoke.

  
“Have you ever heard of the witch of the wilds?”

  
Symmetra shook her head.

  
“Figures. Well, she is a powerful magician who lures people into her services by promising them all the things they wish to have, every last desperate craving satisfied. She lives out in the forest in a hut built into the trees and whoever is in dire enough circumstances to seek her out goes there on a rainy day and asks for her help.”

  
“A true businesswoman, then.”

  
“She strikes bargains and gambles with the life of others. Her power is immeasurable and she knows it, uses it against the people.”

  
“And?”

  
“And I called her a friend once, before she went and struck her first deal. Then more.”

  
Pharah sat in silence for a while before continuing, clearly distraught remembering the information she so willingly shared.

  
Symmetra looked out into the acres around them, the mountains in the distance. She breathed in the cold air and felt it fill her burning lungs.

  
“So you struck a deal with her, too.”

  
“I didn’t!” Pharah exclaimed, “I would never.”

  
“Then who did this to you?”

  
“There is more than one evil in this world. And I happened to get between two of them. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  
“Oh?”

  
“The witch has a rival, a warlock from the far away lands. He was trying to attack the witch where it hurt and went to find some of her friends from when she was still… still among us. I was one of the few he singled out and now we are here.”

  
“What does it mean, to be possessed?” Symmetra asked.

  
“It means to be eternally thirsty and not needing to drink. Hungering when your stomach is full of ashes. It means to be undead and never dying.”

  
Pharah wiped her mouth and then her eyes as though the vomit was quicker than the tears.

  
“My own mother couldn’t bear it and took her own life as she heard the news,” she said, “I’m a monster now. There is nothing human left in me.”

  
Symmetra felt the urge to tell her that there was nothing wrong with not being human anymore; that there were other realms of possibilities out there and so many new things to taste in whatever form they came in, just like it mattered not what shape you were in when you experienced them.

  
She did not say it out loud; she did not know why. Her heart felt strange at the thought of it.

  
“You are beautiful to me,” she said, finally, “And I do not care what your people think of you.”

  
Pharah looked at her as though she was not sure whether to be angry or grateful- as if she only just realized whose companionship she was with.

  
Then she sighed.

  
“You are a dragon, you can’t-”

  
“If I could heal you, I would. I would take all your pain. But I cannot and so I will do what there is to do- accept you as you are, my dear.”

  
Pharah blushed at that and Symmetra smiled at her until she looked away.

  
She was not very good at this- had never learned how to be around people and humans especially. Because that was what Pharah was to her- a human, at heart, even if she would not tell her that in fear of breaking something that was not fixable. A glass case, that traumatic memory, unleashed and bound no longer.

  
“You are beautiful to me,” she repeated her words, “Stay.”

  
Pharah did.

 

* * *

 

 

Being in love was a strange thing for a dragon. Then again, she supposed and smiled to herself, being in love was a strange thing to the many other creatures populating the lands, too; it was a shared sentiment no matter who or what you were.

  
Symmetra fell deep into the well, drank from the fountain, got lost in the endless sea. To her, love flowed like water and light.

  
“Does this mean anything to you?” Pharah asked her as they lay close underneath the stars once, two wanderers out in the wilds, “Do I mean anything to you?”

  
“The world and more,” Symmetra answered and it was the truth, “From the first moment to the last.”

 

* * *

 

 

The last moment came quicker than they would have wanted it to.

  
One day they were together and out there, seeing the world in all its colors; the next they were not and they were separated and they were gone from each other’s world.

  
“I need to investigate something,” Pharah said and it was the last words they exchanged, “I will be back soon. It’s about my mother, it- it can’t wait.”

  
It couldn’t wait and neither could Symmetra as the days went on and the weeks kept coming and yet no one returned to her. She was not furious; she was not even angry at all.

  
Her heart did not burn as bright from then on, though, it was quieter and subdued as though it had taken a hit and never recovered.

  
She moved on with her journey, however, and did so alone.

  
That was, until she met the witch.

 

* * *

 

 

The hut in the woods looked inconspicuous enough if you were just passing through without a care in the world. It was located in a small clearing in the middle of the woods, way off the beaten path and out there where some birds never flew and the air was charged with the arcane.

  
A stream led past the house, making the whole thing seem more idyllic than it was in actuality. Everything looked picture-perfect, from the wildflowers near the water to the knobby branches of the trees framing the hut; it was enveloped in their bark, moulded from it.

  
Symmetra knew what she was looking at the moment she spotted it from afar. There was no mystery to it for her; she remembered Pharah’s words well and would not be taken off guard.

  
Her metal feet sunk into the soft earth as she walked closer and the smell of magic brewing close by was sharp and poignant.

  
She went to work.

  
It did not take long for the witch to arrive, enraged.

  
“How dare you destroy what is mine,” the witch hissed as she descended from above on her golden wings, burning brighter than the light in the sky, “How dare you-”

  
She stopped as she landed with her hand on the ground, slowly getting up to her feet and taking in the one who had burned a trail into her space here in the woods.

  
Symmetra stood her ground, arms crossed in front of her chest, fingers tapping away on her elbow. She was not in a mood to joke around.

  
“What does a dragon have to gain from angering a witch, I wonder?” the witch asked and took a step closer with her staff at her side, “Do you know who I am? Do you know what you have done?”

  
She looked ready to cast a curse or worse; she looked ready to attack at any given moment.

  
“You were Pharah’s friend,” Symmetra said, “And you abandoned her when she most needed it.”

  
The witch stopped in her tracks and her eyes were as wide as the sun.

  
She gathered herself.

  
“Come inside,” she said then, “We have a lot to talk about.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What did Pharah tell you about us?”

  
“That you were close. Friends.”

  
“Oh my, what a way to describe it. Well, I suppose we were friends, too, in the end, when I was still so foolishly mortal and out there in the world not caring for a damn thing. Pardon my language. But we were lovers, too, dragon, for a short while and happily so. Pharah and I had a lot of good days before the bad came. Before she decided we were not worth it.”

  
“That’s not how she put it.”

  
Symmetra sipped a bit of the tea she had been offered. It was not poisoned; she had made sure before, of course, that their cups were clean and empty and no magic spell was covering them. It always paid off to be cautious.

  
“That’s how I put it,” the witch said and snapped her fingers, making the spoon stir the cup on its own.

  
Her house was messy and spacious, tomes and folios strewn across the floor and stacked up as high as the ceiling. There were ingredients all over the place, too, herbs and weeds and parts of creatures she had never seen. To her right she saw a jar of owl heads.

  
“My name is Mercy,” the witch said, “And I chose to be this instead of a human because it gives me the power to control my own destiny. I don’t want to be powerless ever again, dragon, I hope you can understand that.”

  
Symmetra thought of her dream and of dying and she found herself agreeing with the witch. Being human and dying to the slightest thing. A breeze could kill them, a simple gust of wind.

  
“So now I am the witch of the wilds. I help people out in exchange for a little something and then they do my bidding, for a while. It’s fair, if you ask me. I have never forced anyone into the agreement.”

  
It sounded valid the way she said it but Symmetra was sure there was more to it. It had not sounded that promising and gracious when Pharah had spoken of it and she trusted her more than someone she had only just met and didn’t know much of.

Their time together mattered.

  
“What happened to Pharah?” Mercy asked, “I assume you two were together at some point but now you are not. You came here by yourself and with a vengeance.”

  
Symmetra pursed her lips. It was not a good thing to remember.

  
“We parted ways,” she said honestly, “I found you by chance.”

  
“Oh?”

  
“Pharah has suffered enough. She believes herself to be a monster even though she is anything but.”

  
“I could help her, you know.”

  
“You could?”

  
“Yes, it is within my power to suppress the symptoms of the possession.”

  
“And yet you did not help her.”

  
“We were done.”

  
Symmetra did not like hearing that one bit; she was not sure how to even voice her anger. The ancients were whispering of burning and turning things to cinders.

  
“Then I am done with you, too,” she said and stood up.

  
“Wait, wait,” Mercy said and put a hand on her arm, “I am willing to come with you and help her. There is only one thing I need from you in return. Something that has been a thorn in my side for a while…”

 

* * *

 

 

They traveled together for a while then, even more unlikely companions than she had been with Pharah.

  
The witch was cruel at times, merciless at others, laughing at her nickname and twirling her fingers to cast spells powerful enough to stop the flow of time and redirect it at her will.

  
“My adopted brother taught me this,” she explained once, “He is the real angel. I have strayed from his path a little since then, I am afraid.”

  
She did not look like she regretted it at all.

  
When Symmetra asked her questions she laughed oftentimes.

  
“I like to keep it a little bit of a mystery,” she said, “That’s part of the appeal.”

  
She had that way about her, that alluring siren’s call, that was difficult to ignore.

  
So when they walked down the winding way they did so as allies, for a time, as companions.

  
“I’ve got my eye on you,” Mercy said with a wink, “Be careful, or you might find yourself under my spell, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next dream she had was not a vision.

  
It confused her at first because so far they all had been; there was only the call of the ancients in her sleep, the will of the fates that was there for her to follow. She was not used to being her own person and being a single mind only- it had felt that way with Pharah but now that she was alone it was back to how it used to be.

  
This time, the dream was different.

  
When she first gained awareness she found herself lying on her back in a room she couldn’t make out the details of. It was like the edges of her vision were blurred by some unknown power; as though she was not meant to be seeing this.

  
As she focused on the things closer to her she was surprised to see the witch there, seated by her side and immersed in a book. She looked good like this, determined and relaxed so that the corners of her mouth could twitch up occasionally. She looked human like this, approachable. Pretty, in her robes and the witch’s hat.

  
She looked up from her book and laughed- voiceless, soundless. She turned to the side and waved at someone to come closer, look at this, find out more.

  
Symmetra tried to follow her gestures with her eyes but she could not move, felt warm and relaxed as though she was made from honey. She wanted to melt into the sheets below her- because that was what she lay on, she realized, she was in a bed.

  
Pharah came into view and her heart faltered for a second.

  
Then they talked, the two of them in front of her, laughing and joking around with each other. It was a blessed moment, a good fortune, even if she could hear none of it- to see these women so jovial and amicable, to see them happy and interacting as though there had never been any bad blood between them.

  
Then she saw them kiss, briefly, saw them brush lips against each other in the most gentle of gestures.

  
Symmetra was confused.

  
They turned to her next; and that should have been an ominous statement. To her, in this moment and with the knowledge she had in this dream, it wasn’t.

  
She felt their hands on her arms first, rubbing and stroking up and down to stir up the blood beneath the skin. It worked; she felt her body heat up from the core, a stirring inside of her that encompassed the very nature of her being.

  
They spoke through her all throughout this, no sound coming from their mouths. It was all gone in a haze, lights flickering and noises dampened down to a pleasant hum.

  
It felt right.

  
They made their way across the scales on her body, trailed their hands from the nape of her neck to the strong line of her calves. Her wings unfurled at some point, spreading out to the sides and joints cracking into place.

  
When they dipped between her legs her body sang, strung taut like a bowstring.

  
She had something of a revelation then, there between the two and finding out the limitations of her body, something that felt like a shock to her brain while her nerves were still alight.

  
She breathed in air and breathed out fire.

 

* * *

 

 

“What powers does a dragon have?” the young girl named Efi asked her way before she ever met anyone she loved in this world.

  
Symmetra laughed and lifted her weapon from the ground.

  
“The power of fire and ash,” she said and activated its flame for but a moment. The sound it made was harrowing- only fools would choose not to flee from it were they followed by it.

  
“But what does that mean?”

  
“I can turn to cinders what I do not like. I can destroy all that needs to be destroyed if I choose to.”

  
“Destruction isn’t all there is, though,” the little girl said and her eyes were wide, “There is more to it than that.”

  
It took Symmetra longer than she cared to admit to realize there was more to her power than that, too, that there were hidden dimensions she had overlooked for so long. For years and years she had wandered the earth, first alone and then with others, and she had spent all that time thinking she was a destroyer of worlds, a creator of smaller sentries and nothing more.

  
So when she awoke from the dream she could not sort into categories she could feel it pulse beneath her skin, that different swell of power, that other-ness that pervaded everything new she found there was to the world.

  
She tried it out in private at first, took the new ability she had discovered for a test run. It made her smile, seeing the light and the lines of the fabric of space spin around and create something out of nothing, matter out of void.

  
She was ready.

 

* * *

 

 

The castle was bigger than she had expected; it loomed fearsomely over the city and its many castellations and pinnacles were creating a stark contrast against the dark blue backdrop of the sky.

  
Thunder and lightning had come with the night, they growled and hissed in the distance and grew only ever closer as time went on.

  
Symmetra could smell the electricity in the air as she climbed the stairway to one of the towers. It was her job to be up there and she was following orders for now.

  
So her heels clicked on the stone and she heard the sounds of the night and she knew for a fact that this was not a good cause she was fighting for; this was not the will of the ancients. But Symmetra also felt the cool night air on her skin and thought herself a rebel, pushing the boundaries of who and what she was.

  
A dragon cared about itself most of all, kept itself safe and warm and happy. That was what the hoards were for- that was what counted to her.

  
So as she reached the top of the stairs and stepped out into the open she was there because she wanted to be- not a thing in the world could have forced her.

  
Down below she saw them, the four wanderers she had been promised. They had spread out their defences around the castle door, tried to secure the perimeter.

  
“I have been summoned,” Symmetra announced herself and laughed, knowing these people would fall to her and her weapons.

  
She turned to her side and spun a net of light in the empty air, created the new thing she had learned how to make. Soon there was a glowing contraption on the ground, rotating around an axis and sending out shields to the many creatures ascending the stairs with her.

  
Dr. Junkenstein’s zomnics were slow but effective- and they were even better warded with her shielding spell. The shield generator did its job well and she loved hearing it hum behind her.

  
However, it was time to go.

  
She sent out a protective ward as she descended the stairs to cross the moat that led up to the bridge in front of the castle doors. It flew through the air in front of her and led the way, taking the first bullet meant for her head.

  
There were four of them down there; the monk, the swordsman, the countess, and the viking. Symmetra had heard of them and was prepared to face them all; she was here to help out the witch and her plaything, the doctor.

  
“It’s a simple mission,” Mercy had said, “And one for the ages.”

 

* * *

 

 

Symmetra surveyed the damage done to the castle and stepped around the debris where explosions had punctured the stone walls. The oak door lay in splinters on the ground.

  
The wanderers had held out long enough for the castle’s denizens to flee, but they themselves had not been quite as lucky. The doctor’s creation had made quick work of the viking’s turret before the bombs being lobbed at the castle had taken out its builder. The swordsman fell next; then the monk, draping their bodies side by side. The countess managed to flee the site but only by the skin of her teeth, grappling over the side of the wall and falling far, surely injuring herself in the process.

  
Symmetra collected the sentries she had sent out into the area and made her rounds around the bridge, waiting for other allies of the castle to appear and ruin the sweet revenge that the doctor wanted to exact upon them. She did not like the man, found him uncouth and crazed more than anything else.

  
Symmetra did not feel remorse- she was a dragon, after all. Born from the fires of hell and stronger than the ones she had helped kill today. However, her lust for blood had been sated and she did not revel in it like the doctor’s creation did.

  
Someone appeared then, out of the night.

 

* * *

 

 

“My mother was a strong alchemist,” Pharah had said, “The strongest and most skilled in the entire land.”

  
The woman that approached Symmetra from the other side of the bridge did not look like the strongest anything- she looked worn with age and tired, exhausted from the ways of the world.

  
Symmetra recognized her nonetheless, by the tattoo under her eye.

  
Within seconds she had the woman by the throat, lifting her up from the ground so that her feet dangled in the air.

  
“You dare show your face to me,” she spat and her weapon spun and sizzled where the fire began to gather, “You, of all the people?”

  
A vial crashed to the ground at her side, making her cough and lose her footing. As she stumbled and fell she realized that this was her mistake- underestimating the humans, feeling as though she was untouchable when there were powers out there in the world even she could not fully understand.

  
“You work with these creatures blinded by vengeance,” Pharah’s mother said, “You killed these innocent souls willing to stake their life for the citizen’s of this town.”

  
“You left your daughter to fend for herself after pretending you were dead!” Symmetra snapped back and tried to shake the alchemist’s potion from her sick skin, tried to break free.

  
The woman seemed taken aback.

  
“You know my daughter?”

  
“I have loved your daughter!” Symmetra yelled and gritted her teeth, so very unsightly, so very unlike her, “And she is lost because of you!”

  
“I-”

  
“You left her when she most needed you! You left her! She thinks herself a monster but that is what you are for ever leaving her behind!”

  
The last thing she saw before succumbing to the potion’s effect was the face of the woman she had cursed for so long; she saw it in her nightmares as though a human could ever inspire fear in her.

 

* * *

 

 

Dragons did not contemplate death like humans would- humans died and lived like flies, always one step closer to the grave and dying so easily, snapping in half because of the simplest thing.

  
Dragons were hard to kill. Swords and bullets were averted by the scales and no fire could ever get through to the one burning inside them. They were resilient in a way mortals could not be because their hearts were not on fire like the dragons’ was and always would be.

  
Symmetra drifted in and out of consciousness for a long time.

  
She asked herself if this was death for her, if she would find herself as a voice in someone else’s head soon, joining the chorus of the ancients leading the destiny of a new dragon.

  
She asked herself if this was the punishment she had to face for disobeying them and following her own steps while their shadows kept watching on. It would be fitting- her life ending so much sooner than the ones before her because she took that deal and walked those stairs up to the rampart.

  
She drifted and thought and was, so inexplicably, as a being contained in its own mind could be.

  
Formless, shapeless flesh.

 

* * *

 

 

“She’s waking up.”

  
It was the first thing she heard as she woke up again, the first few words making it to her ears through the veil of unconsciousness.

  
Symmetra groaned. Her head hurt; her horns were itching as though someone had covered them in dirt just to mess with her. It reminded her of sleeping out in the forest by herself and finding the tiny lifeforms cling to her when she awoke as though they wanted to warm themselves close to the flame.

  
She realized, then, that she was tied up to a chair, sitting upright.

  
Her vision returned to her quickly and she was awake again before she knew it- being captured was sobering, at the very least.

  
She was still in the castle, she surmised as she looked around, the walls were the same stone and the same mold covering the small spaces in between. There were fissures in it now but she could still recognize it.

  
Standing in front of her were four people.

  
“About time,” the gunslinger said, his weapon at the ready.

  
Symmetra recognized him, just like she recognized the other three. She had been told stories of them for a while now, had heard the tale of how they defended the castle from her own temporary companions as they waited for night to fall.

  
“You did not kill me,” she said and relaxed into her shackles, “That is a surprise. And an oversight on your end.”

  
“We would have killed you,” the soldier told her, “But nothing punctures your skin.”

  
It made Symmetra chuckle.

  
“So you tried and failed.”

  
“We tried, yes.”

  
He was older than she had expected- a veteran, someone who had seen many a war and made it out of them on the behalf of many sacrifices. His rifle was always by his side and she had it seen slay the zomnics from afar.

  
Then there was the alchemist, Pharah’s mother, who had so expertly bested her and concocted potion after potion to combat the evils of the world. She did not consider herself one of the monsters.

  
The gunslinger leaned against the wall a little further away, confident and overseeing the situation. His revolver was there with him and she had seen him use it; had seen him destroy entire hordes of enemies with a single breath. It almost seemed as though he shot more bullets than he owned, rained hell upon his enemies.

  
The archer was quiet and hiding a storm; she could see him try to murder her first, could see him be the one to deal the killing blow if it was possible. His dragons were not there with him yet but she knew they were sleeping just below the surface.

  
“I will not hurt you if you untie me,” Symmetra promised, “I will leave this place and never return.”

  
“And why would you do that, pray tell?” the gunslinger asked.

  
“I have had my fun.”

  
She did not look at the alchemist all this time, had her eyes averted and her legs stilled on the wooden chair. She could have burned her way out of this if she wanted to. Her weapon was behind the archer on a cracked place on the wall. It was not out of sight.

  
“This was fun to you?” the archer asked, “Innocent people died.”

  
Symmetra did not like his tone; but the part of her that loved a human also did not like the sound of what he had said.

  
She felt regret then, for the first time. It was a quiet feeling, a sinking feeling. It was mixed with embarrassment too, for having emotions at all and having done what she did. The ancients were whispering about her shame, too.

  
“Junkenstein and his monster are gone,” the soldier said, “We disposed of them. The defenders fell but we arrived in time to save the castle.”

  
“What happened to the witch?” Symmetra asked. She worried for her friend.

  
“She escaped. Left you behind.”

  
“I can handle myself.”

  
It was all she needed to say to these people- she was done.

  
Her shackles grew red hot as she let them burn. They fell to the ground before a minute passed, sizzling and steaming as they had been against her skin.

  
Her captors lunged for their weapons but she lifted her hand, urged them to stop. They were not stupid, did not let down their guards around her. But they stopped, anyway.

  
“I told you,” she said to their faces with her head held high, “I’ve had my fun.”

  
Behind her the shackles melted into the ground, gleaming red and orange metal.

 

* * *

 

 

“Thank god you’re alive! I could not find your body to resurrect you!” Mercy said as they met again, outside the forest and far away from the confines of the city.

  
“I never died,” Symmetra replied and extended her hand to the witch who took it gladly, holding it in hers as though she was carrying expensive jewelry upon her fingers.

  
There passed a moment between them where they were not sure of how to proceed- to get closer or further away?

  
The night was cool and calming. The stars were out and brighter than ever.

  
“I think that doctor has been enough trouble,” Mercy said, “Him and his monster can stay dead for all I care. The castle has been destroyed and some of the fools defending it are gone with it. I think this is enough fun for the day, hm?”

  
“Is it really fun to you?” Symmetra asked her, “The killing part of this?”

  
She felt it in her gut- that conscience that being with a human had brought out, that came with knowing many a person out here in the wilds. She felt like a stranger in her own skin; nausea was right there along with it. Killing was another’s idea.

  
Mercy put a finger on her chin, pretending to be deep in thought.

  
“I suppose,” she said, “Is that a problem?”

  
“I don’t think I will follow you down this road, my friend.”

  
Mercy looked at her with honest confusion, then fear, then just the tiniest spark of anger.

  
“I see,” she said, “I see how it is.”

 

* * *

 

 

Symmetra wandered the earth alone after that, coming to terms with who she was and wanted to be; who she had been and could continue to become.

  
The castle’s defenders did not come to hunt her down; they had let her walk and watched her go with anger in their eyes. She could not fault them for it; she had learned not to.

  
The voice of the ancients was quiet these days, left her alone with her own thoughts and the knowledge that she had made a mistake for once, that failing was a part of life as much as anything else was.

  
She grew.

  
She changed.

  
She lived.

 

* * *

 

 

Symmetra met Pharah again after travelling alone for years.

  
One second it was just another day among many others, then it suddenly started to be the most important one of them all.

  
They bumped into each other in a marketplace, out in the open and with nothing to their names but the clothes on their back.

  
“It’s you,” Symmetra said and she smiled as much as she had not smiled in a million years, “I have found you.”

  
Brown eyes met hers.

  
“And you are human again,” she continued and her mouth was as dry as a sandstorm out in the desert, “How come?”

  
“The witch gave me a parting gift the last time we met,” Pharah said and she was smiling too, with her beautiful mouth, “A moment of sentimentality.”

  
She lifted up a charm she wore around her neck.

  
Symmetra had no eyes for the trinket; she felt weak in her knees and sick to the core but in a good way- struck by an illness that consumed her whole, a festering wound of love inside of her. It had not waned after years.

  
“I missed you,” she said and it was a small confession to make.

  
Pharah wrapped her arms around her.

  
It was all good then, all good.

  
The dragon was sated.

 

* * *

 


End file.
